But no spell formed in Nicodemus’s hand. The boy lunged forward and slammed his knuckles into Fellwroth’s jaw.

The brief contact with the Nicodemus’s skin showed Fellwroth a glimpse of the boy’s past-a beautiful woman with long brown hair, reading.

Not caring what private memory was now flashing through Nicodemus’s mind, Fellwroth cast a voluminous Magnus wave that knocked the boy back onto the stone table. The boy’s spellbook struck the tabletop and lay open by his hip.

“There shall be no more!” Fellwroth bellowed, and raised the emerald. “Today, Nicodemus Weal, your mind shall be splintered.”

A wafer-thin Numinous paragraph grew from the emerald to become the thinnest of blades. Fellwroth stepped forward and swung the textual sword down.

Desperately, Nicodemus lurched backward but found his hands useless on the slick tabletop.

Fellwroth’s arm flashed through the air, but when the blade was an inch from Nicodemus’s brow, a blast of crimson light burst from Boann’s ark and struck Fellwroth’s hand.

The blow was not strong, but it was enough to pry the emerald from Fellwroth’s pale fingers.

The gem dropped.

The instant Fellwroth lost contact with the emerald, the Numinous blade misspelled into dull sentence fragments that splashed harmlessly into Nicodemus’s face.

“No!” Fellwroth bellowed.

The green stone fell quietly onto the boy’s chest.

In that moment, Fellwroth recognized the emerald’s betrayal: it had somehow told Boann’s ark when and how to pull it free.

The boy’s hand flew up to his chest and closed around the emerald.

AS AMADI AND Kale hurried to the stables in the Spirish Quarter, the secretary explained about Simple John’s appearance and the golem attack.

To Amadi’s profound relief, two of the provost’s officers-the rector and the dean of libraries-followed close behind. They were coming from a closed meeting in which Amadi had tried to explain the events of the past two days to the provost. It had not gone well. Blessedly, Kale had saved her with urgent news.

By the time they reached the stables, two of her sentinels had edited John out of the stasis spell. Though they had censored the big man, they had also sat him down on a stool and brought him a cup of water.

“John,” Amadi said when she stood before the cacographer. “Where are Shannon and Nicodemus?”

He pursed his lips and looked at her with narrowed eyes. “You wouldn’t believe,” he said slowly.

“I know about the golem,” she said curtly. “Blood of Los, but I know about the golem! And I have a day, maybe two, to prove that the creature exists or the provost will censor magical literacy out of my mind.”

The big man thought about this before nodding. “Nico and Magister have gone to attack the golem’s author in the Spindle Bridge.”

Amadi took a long breath. “That’s a long way off. And forming a party will take time.” She stopped. “You said ‘in’ the bridge?”

“Go there,” said John. “You will see what I mean. Only…” He paused. “Only take all your spellwrights… and all your strongest words.”

CHAPTER Forty-three

Nicodemus saw no dazzling flash, felt no rush of power. Everything seemed the same.

And yet, somehow, he knew exactly what to do. His right hand tightened around the emerald and his left landed on the opened page of the Index.

His mind flashed into the Index’s starry sky to collide with tirade-an epic Numinous-Magnus spell possessing an aggressive and self-reflexive style.

A scriptorium of grand wizards would have needed a year to craft such a versatile text without error.

But when Nicodemus forged within the emerald, perfectly formed sentences exploded into his hand and spilled down his arm. In the next heartbeat, he blazed from toe to tongue with violent language.

The spell’s dazzling glare illuminated Fellwroth’s white-robed figure. The creature’s hood had fallen during the fight, and Nicodemus looked on his enemy’s face.

Limp white hair hung down to Fellwroth’s thin shoulders. His pale skin shone with a dull sheen like maggot’s flesh. His smooth jaw, hollow cheeks, and snub nose seemed human but strangely asexual.

Between the creature’s pale lips opened a maw filled with a hundred quivering tendons. His eyes gleamed red. His forehead presented a golden rectangle of flowing Numinous sentences.

With a backhand slash, Fellwroth cast a spray of needle-like disspells.

But Nicodemus threw out both hands and cast his tirade. The spell produced a Numinous sheet that enveloped the disspells and then discharged a Magnus sphere. This latter passage smashed into Fellwroth’s chest and knocked the monster to the ground.

Nicodemus leaped up from the table and cast a thousand filaments of intertwined Numinous and Magnus.

Though sprawled on the floor, Fellwroth thrust his right hand upward to produce another spray of disspells.

But Nicodemus’s tirade was too cogent. The filaments darted through Fellwroth’s disspells and unwound.

The Magnus tirade coiled around the creature’s body, binding his arms to his side and wrapping his legs together. The Numinous tirade spun a web around the monster’s mind, cutting him off from all magical language.

“Hold!” Fellwroth cried. “I yield!”

NICODEMUS STOOD OVER his spellbound foe expecting to feel triumphant. But the only emotion he felt was uncertainty.

Just what in the Creator’s name happened now?

Though tirade’s glow had faded, the remaining flamefly paragraphs provided ample light. Nicodemus looked around and saw Deirdre lying on the floor. She was struggling against the Magnus chains contracting around her neck.

Nicodemus caught the text between thumb and forefinger. Using the emerald, he gleaned the spell’s structure and edited two passages. A link snapped, and Deirdre yanked the thing from her throat.

Across the cavern, Shannon was lying motionless on the ground. Azure stood beside him, trying to pluck Fellwroth’s censoring text out of the old man’s mind.

Nicodemus thought for a moment and then extemporized a vinelike Numinous disspell. He cast it onto Shannon with an underhand toss. The disspell grew up the old man’s body and delicately removed the censoring text.

Groaning, Shannon began to stir.

A smile crept across Nicodemus’s face as his self-doubt began to fade. Without the emerald, he would have misspelled such a text within moments. He was whole now, complete.

“You cannot kill me,” a voice rasped. “Without me, Shannon will die.”

Nicodemus turned back to see a spellbound Fellwroth glaring at him with baleful red eyes.

“Only I can disspell the old wizard’s canker curses,” the creature rasped. “I spread dozens more throughout his gut. You need me. Only I can teach you how to remove them. Only I can teach you the meaning of Language Prime. You will never understand that life is made of magical text and-”

Nicodemus flicked a Magnus gag across the monster’s mouth.

He went to Shannon. The old man was on his hands and knees, vomiting another glowing pool of logorrhea bywords. Threads of blood now coiled within the silvery text.

It seemed that Fellwroth had told the truth about planting more curses in Shannon ’s body.

“No,” the old linguist sputtered while trying to wave Nicodemus away. “Find out about the Disjunction. Question the monster.”

Nicodemus scowled. “Magister, hold still. I have to disspell your curses.”

“Later,” Shannon grunted. “The sentinels will be here soon. We must get Fellwroth to-”

“Magister!” Nicodemus snapped. His voice was firm though his hands had gone cold with fear. “Be quiet and hold still!”

The wizard sat on his haunches. “Very well, but hurry. We don’t have long.”

Nicodemus had to touch the old man to disspell the curses. But as he reached for his teacher’s cheek, his hand froze. It was shaking.